Her Rock, Her Strength
by lowi
Summary: She sees her own eyes in Bellatrix, and she knows she's a Black. But then there's Ted, too. /Secret santa 2011 for Louise


_A/N: Written for Louise (__the-panda-eater__), as I got her for Secret Santa at the Prompts-forum. I hope you'll like this, dear, and I'm sorry it's so late. I love you._

_Many thanks to mew (__mew-tsubaki__) for betareading!_

* * *

**Her Rock, Her Strength**

The sun is rising but she is not. She is pushed down, unable to get up, and she does not understand why.

Then she sees the eyes. They are piercing her and mocking her with their insane joy and the fact that she perfectly knows to whom they belong. Hell, they even belong to her herself.

"Dearest sister, what did you expect?" Bella leans closer, her smirking lips almost touching Andromeda's cheek.

"What have you done to me?" Andromeda breathes out, her voice too crackled to be able to speak out loud.

"I haven't done _anything_ to you, Andy. What have you done to _us_, is the better question." Bella sits down on the floor next to Andromeda's unmoving body, unresponsive body, and her hair is falling across her face, as though she is melting.

"I haven't done anything," Andromeda says slowly, but she knows what her sister is talking about, of course she does. She should have known this would happen, she actually _had _known this would happen.

But it still hurts. Like hell. And that hadn't been expected. She had made her decision with the inkling that she would win, that her family wouldn't be able to hurt her any longer. But now she is lying here and being pained by the fact that she had not been prepared for it to feel like this, watching Bella look at her with disgust and hatred in her eyes.

She begins to cry, something she has not done in years, and it makes Bella's lips curl in surprise and superiority, and everything is about to burn, any moment now.

It does.

::::

It is a shaking Andromeda that bursts through the door, and Ted does not know what to do. He has not seen her looking like this since…since forever, to be honest. And, that little fact makes him shudder; it is not _his_ Andromeda in front of him, it is not the Andromeda he knows like the back of his hand.

It is an Andromeda that is broken.

He leads her to their sofa, and she has not yet lifted her head to meet his eyes, and she is clutching his arm so hard that her nails dig into his skin. They sit down, together, and her head buries itself in his neck, and he stares out the window with unseeing eyes as he strokes her hair as he always does.

The time slowly passes and the sunlight turns from yellow to orange to purple to grey to black to…gone. He notices that she is not crying any longer, but the air has instead been polluted with the bittersweet taste of her tears, so he puts a finger under her chin and forces her to look at him.

"Meda?" he asks, and he becomes almost scared of his voice.

"Ted," she whispers. "It was Bella, I haven't…I didn't think it would be like this. Or no, I always knew it would be like this, and that was what…Ted, I can't."

"What did she do, Meda?" he asks, and tries to fight the urge to leave the house, find Bellatrix and crush every bloody bone in her body. "Just tell me, okay?"

"It wasn't only her, and it wasn't _that_, Ted. It was what it made me feel." Her voice is suddenly a little bit stronger, and she looks straight at Ted now, with burning eyes, and he cringes slightly.

"What did it made you feel, then?" he asks softly.

"Weak. Dependent on _them_," she spits out the last word, and her fist is clenched where it rests against his leg. "As though I'll never be free from them," she finishes more quietly and leans her head against his forehead.

Ted doesn't know how to answer her, because something has just hit him. What if she is right? What if she always will have a part of her that aches to reunite with her family?

"Ted?" she asks slowly. "Say something, _please_." Her voice is shaking, as if she can't stand the silence. "What if I'll never get a happy ending, what if…" Her eyes are widely open and in that moment she looks younger than the twenty years she is, the experienced and brave edge to her face disappearing with every hitched breath she takes.

"Shh, Meda," he answers, deciding that he is not going to be selfish when it comes to this. Andromeda needs him and he sort of likes that feeling, that he is able to provide her with something, for once. "You'll have your very own happy ending, haven't I always said that?"

"Yes, yes, you have, but I don't know, will I really be able to get that if there's always going to be a part of me longing to be a Black, to be like my family?" She stumbles over her own words and is gripping Ted's arm as though she is gripping reality.

"You will. You can't deny it, that is a part of you," Ted says with a nod. "But in the same time, you know that you don't have to give in, and I'll be there helping you with that, I swear. I promise, even."

She looks up at him with still huge eyes, but maybe they have become a little more tired. "You do?"

"Of course." He leans his head forwards and kisses the top of her head, and she closes her eyes and leans against his chest.

They fall asleep, there. They are tangled, their legs and arms, as if they are one person, and it takes ages until Ted, too, dares to close his eyes. He can't help but continue to wonder if she has been hurt physically, as well, and he all the time is worried that she at any minute is going to stop breathing, that it's not only her mind that has been scarred.

But as her breathings steadies, he lets go, holds her a little harder before relaxing and letting his eyelids shut themselves.

::::

He is alone. It hits him like an arrow piercing into his heart. He is left alone with his lonely thoughts and lonely screams that no one hears so why bother even screaming?

Sometime during last night, she must've slipped out of his embrace, because she isn't there anymore. There isn't a trace of her left and he can't grasp it. Why did she leave? What did he do wrong? Where was she, for Merlin's sake?

He rises from the sofa and hurries out through the door, not bothering to change clothes or anything at all; he just needs to find her. As soon as possible.

It echoes in his head, the thought, _Where is she? Where is she? Where is she_? and it turns into a mantra—_where is she where is she where is she_—and he has to repeat it in this special beat to make his feet move, because otherwise he would've fallen down on the ground and been unable to rise again.

He doesn't even know where to start searching, he realizes after a while. He has hurried down the street outside their little house, and is now by the crossroad. And, damn, she could be anywhere. She could have Apparated to Hawaii, if that's what she felt like.

He clenches his fists, and closes his eyes. He must come up with an answer; he is supposed to know this, isn't he? He knows everything about Andromeda, he is the only one who does, he should know this.

He opens his eyes and smiles. That wasn't so hard, was it?

:::

She swallows the tea as fast as she can, she wants it to burn in her throat, she wants it there, because it makes her _feel_ something instead of the numb pounding that shattered her, that had greeted her directly when she had opened her eyes and found her head resting, for some reason she yet hadn't discovered, _too_ close to Ted's neck.

She doesn't know why she ran away, why she suddenly can't, won't, never will again be close to Teddy. It's just…wrong.

And she's scared. Of something, but definitely now him. She takes another sip of the tea and looks around herself. She's in a little Muggle coffee shop, and the windows have been sprayed with fake snow and…she's in a Muggle shop.

She rises quickly from her seat and walks up to the counter. The man behind it, a short, young man with a blonde beard and green eyes, smiles to her.

"Something else, miss?" Andromeda stares at him. He's a Muggle. Her hand goes into her pocket, and she can feel the wood of her wand, the smooth, cold surface.

"Miss?" the man's eyes narrows, and he looks concerned. He's a Muggle.

Andromeda swallows. "Yes," she says, and she tightens her grip around the wand. His eyes flash to her hand that is in her pocket and up to her face, and that, that is _fear._ Andromeda grins to herself, and his eyes grow even wider.

"Meda!" A voice is heard and someone suddenly grabs her around her waist and pulls her back. She takes her hand out of her pocket; she has to, to be able to try and get free from the grip. "Meda, listen, shhh, I'm here." The voice is calm, and the hands don't let go of her, and Andromeda squirms as much as she can.

"Let me go!" she shouts, but then they're out on the street, and she gets too much air in her lungs so she can't get a sound out of her mouth.

The person turns her around, and it is Ted's soft features that greet her. She slumps in his arms, unable to hold herself up any longer. "I'm here, hey, Meda, I'm here," he says, and he is right, he is there.

"How did you find me?" she asks with a hollow voice that doesn't sound like her own, and it feels as though she finally can think again.

"I know you, Meda," he says, and of course, it was quite obvious that she'd go there, it's the only place in this street to which she's never been. "I know you," he repeats and presses her to him, as if he's afraid he might drop her.

"What did I do, Ted, what was I thinking of?" She has closed her eyes, and now she never wants to open them again.

"It doesn't matter, Meda, it's over now. Let's go home, okay?"

"No, no, what have… I didn't thought I'd be able to… Ted, I was going to…"

He puts a finger over her lips and looks sternly at her. "All's well that ends well, Meda, right?"

And it isn't exactly a question, so she doesn't answer. She's still afraid of herself, though, when they walk home together, hand-in-hand, not talking. But since this is Ted, and she's Andromeda, she will never be so afraid of herself again that she will be defeated. She is stronger than that.

They will get their happy ending, and if they don't, it won't be because of Andromeda giving in.


End file.
